Summer has looked very different for us from year to year since moving to Haiti. We spent the beginning of the last two summers traveling stateside, which was great, but made preparing for the next school year quite hectic. We decided that this summer we would be staying home (which also influenced our decision to give birth to our sweet Felicity here in Haiti). We had been looking forward to the extra time we would have to settle in as a family of six and be way ahead of CST prep work as the school year approached. Building projects, though several, are not major ones and our current staff had been doing a great job so we were in a place to develop our staff training even more. Well… per usual things will not be working out how we first hoped and right now a trip stateside is looking pretty nice…
This summer is going to be an interesting one for us – difficult and frustrating conversations to have, tough decisions to make, changes in school staff and unknowns to discover. I’m not necessarily looking forward to it… ok I am ZERO looking forward to it. And you know why? Because (a) CONFLICT and (b) it’s going to be difficult.
Conflict is not something that Jesse or I were raised to deal with in a healthy way. Avoidance or explosion were our examples. And our personalities tend toward keeping peace and going with the flow – being non-confrontational is in our DNA. BUT as we have experienced life and been thrust into a leadership position, dealing with conflict has been and continues to be a huge area of growth. Though we both have leadership capabilities, honestly neither of us want to be the leader… we both would MUCH rather be a helper to the leader. I think partly because we know handling conflict is part of the package when you’re in a leadership position. My anxiety level shoots up immediately even at the thought of it! But we are where God has us and it seems to me He has us here because He knows that is exactly where we need to grow. Yay. (insert eye roll)
Difficulty. I am not looking forward to the difficulty that lies within the next several months. I mean… I know we can handle it. God is with us and our number one priority is to hear His voice and do what He says. We are confident He is with us, but I would much rather run away from the hard things right now. There is so much mess to be sorted out relationally and within ministry and the only part we can control (obviously) is on our end. I want to put the brakes on, take a step back for like a year and focus in on our family. Make home renovations a priority. Put up all the walls (both emotionally and physically). Keep all the mess out. Build our own little world that is full of joy and peace and a culture we understand and agree with. Hard things? No thanks.
This past Sunday during our morning worship time, my heart and mind were just not engaged. My head was spinning with all the ins and outs and what ifs of all the situations that are going on in ministry. I was angry and sad and asking God why and telling Him that I really just wasn’t up for dealing with it all. And then the last song of the worship set came on:
“You are worthy of it all
You are worthy of it all
for from You are all things
and to You are all things
You deserve the glory”
And as we sang that chorus over and over, my heart softened, tears began to fall and my eyes saw clearly once again why we are even here in Haiti in the first place. We are here to bring Jesus glory – through conflict, through difficulty, through joy and celebration… it’s all for Him. As we handle conflict, invest time into conversations with difficult people, love those who only want to use us and start over in some areas, as we do it all in a Kingdom way, it is all for His glory. He is worthy of it ALL! No matter how much I don’t want to deal with it… He is worthy. No matter what it costs us… He is worthy. No matter what it looks like… He is worthy.